1831 Charles Darwin sets off aboard the HMS Beagle, on his historic 5 year voyage of scientific discovery.

1831 Clement Studebaker was born. Founder of a family firm that became the world's largest manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles, including ‘Conestoga Wagons’. After his death the Studebaker company became the only horse drawn vehicle manufacturer to successfully switch to producing automobiles.

1832 Mary Ludwig Hays ('Molly Pitcher') died. Most famous of the American Revolutionary War soldier's wives who brought water to soldiers on the battlefront - nicknamed 'Molly Pitchers'

1832 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born. Dodgson's pen name was Lewis Carroll. He was an English mathematician and creator of ‘Alice's Adventures in Wonderland’. Alice had a habit of eating and drinking unknown substances.

1832 Julius Sterling Morton was born. He was the founder of Arbor Day, first observed in Nebraska on April 10, 1872. Over one million trees were planted.

1832 Philip Danforth Armour was born. American industrialist and innovator; pioneer in use of refrigeration and meat canning. Armour & Co. helped make Chicago the meatpacking capital of the world.

1832 Sir John Leslie died. A Scottish physicist and mathematician, he was the first to create ice artificially (freeze water artificially). He used an air pump apparatus.

1832 French painter Édouard Manet was born on January 23. His first significant painting was 'The Absinthe Drinker.' He was an associate of the Impressionists.

1832 The 'John Mason', the first public horse-drawn streetcar, began carrying passengers in New York City. The fare was 12½¢. The coaches, with seating for 30 passengers, were mounted on iron wheels and were drawn by horses over iron rails laid down the middle of the street. Designed and built by John Stephenson.

1833 Obed Hussy of Maryland received a patent for a horse drawn reaper.

1833 Cyrus Hall McCormick received U.S. Patent 7,819X for a Self-sharpening, horizontal plow.

1833 After a 4 month voyage, the first shipment of imported ice arrived in Calcutta, India from Boston, Massachusetts in the insulated hold of the Clipper Tuscany.

1833 Marie-Antoine Careme died in Paris. Carême was known as "the cook of kings and the king of cooks". He is the founder and architect of French haute cuisine. His story is one out of a Dickens novel. He was one of 25 (?) children born to an impoverished family who put him out on the street at the age of about 10 to make his own way in the world. Lucky for the world he knocked on the door of a restaurant for a job. He might have knocked on the door of a blacksmith! By the age of 21 he was chef de cuisine to Talleyrand. He also served as head chef to the future George IV of England, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Baron James de Rothschild. He wrote several large books on cookery, which included hundreds of recipes, menus, history of French cookery, instructions for organizing kitchens, and directions for elaborate architectural constructions of food for display (pièces montées). Carême died at the age of 48.

1833 Jacob Ebert and George Dulty patented the first soda fountain. Not many soda fountains around anymore.

1833 John Deere developed the first steel plow.

1833 Chicago, Illinois, was incorporated as a village, its population was about 200.

1833 Seaman Asahel Knapp was born. An American agriculturist, he began the system which evolved into the U.S. Cooperative Extension Service.

1834 Frederick Walton was born. Invented Linoleum in 1863.

1834 Thomas Tovert Malthus died (born 1766). British economist best known for his theory that population tends to increase faster than the food supply, leading inevitably to disastrous results - famine, disease and/or war.

1834 Sir Gilbert Blane died. A Scottish physician, he served as Physician to the Fleet and head of the Navy Medical Board. He was largely responsible for requiring citrus juice (lemons, later limes) on all naval vessel to prevent scurvy, and improving the general health and sanitary conditions of sailors.

1834 William Lamb became prime minister of England. (I know it's a stretch, but his name is Lamb!).

1834 Catharine Furbish was born. An American botanist, she spent almost 40 years traveling and painting watercolors of the flora of the state of Maine.

1834 Cyrus McCormick received a patent for the first practical mechanical reaper.

1834 Henry Blair received a patent for a corn planter. He was the first African American to be granted a patent.

1834 English author and poet Charles Lamb died.

1834 The first U.S. patent for a refrigerating machine was issued. Jacob Perkins patented a refrigerating machine which used sulphuric ether compression.

1834 David Douglas died (born 1799). A Scottish botanist, he collected plants in Scotland, North America and Hawaii. The Douglas Fir is named for him. He was gored or crushed to death in Hawaii by a wild bull when he fell into an animal trap pit with the bull.

1835 The first issue of the New York Herald newspaper was published by James Gordon Bennett.

1835 Solymon Merrick, of Springfield, Massachusetts, received a patent for a 'Wrench'.

1835 The original Delmonico & Brother Cafe at 23 William Street was destroyed by fire.

1835 The Medoc Vineyard in Halifax county, North Carolina led the country's wine production

1835 Victor Hensen was born. Oceanographer who coined the name 'plankton' for the tiny organisms in found water. Practically all animal life in the sea is ultimately dependent on plankton.

1835 Charles Darwin arrived at the Galapagos islands aboard the HMS Beagle. The unique fauna he observed on the various islands there helped in forming his theory of natural selection.

1835 Henry Burden was granted the first U.S. patent for a horseshoe manufacturing machine.

1835 Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) was born. American author, pen name Mark Twain, who wrote Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, etc. There are many quotes and descriptions about food and dining in his works. An example is: "A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually waste away, and eventually die." (From 'A Tramp Abroad').

1835 Cesar Ritz was born in Niederwald, Switzerland. Famous hotelier whose name became synonymous with luxury.

1835 Fred Harvey was born in London. Frederick Henry Harvey, he operated a chain of restaurants called the 'Harvey House,' and a series of railroad dining cars and hotels. The restaurants were established along the route of the Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe Railroad, and were staffed by "Harvey Girls", who over the years numbered in the thousands. Will Rogers said Harvey "kept the West in food and wives."